“Up On the Roof” is the title of a famous 1960s song by The Drifters about two New York inner-city lovers who go up to the roof just to get away from the “hustling crowd.” There’s a lot of romantic connotation to New York City’s rooft…
They say that it takes a village to raise a child. If that’s true, then it takes even more than that to keep the thousands of New York City co-ops and condominium building communities solvent, harmonious, and informed. With all its poten…
You know you’re living in a hot neighborhood when people from Manhattan visit the area to sample the restaurants and shopping. That’s exactly the status enjoyed by Park Slope, Brooklyn, the area under the south side of Prospect Park tha…
The Business Corporation Law, or BCL, is one of the primary statutes regulating operation of cooperative housing corporations. The BCL was implemented over a century ago, and remained more or less unchanged until it was overhauled in 19…
The lobbies and hallways of residential buildings are not high-end private residential projects—yet they’re not back stairwells or utilities spaces either. They literally fall somewhere in between, and no matter how new or sophisticated…
As an attorney who represents co-op boards, building managers and shareholders, one sometimes wonders if the expression—“ You can’t please all the people all of the time” best applies to the idea of creating harmony between these partie…
After what seemed like years, the wrangling over the proposed West Side Stadium in Manhattan and the city’s bid for the 2012 Olympics is over. A new stadium will now be built in Queens, not Manhattan; New York wasn’t chosen for the Olymp…
Boards of directors are usually made up of ordinary people, elected or appointed by their neighbors to run their building smoothly and efficiently. Most board members do their utmost to fulfill that expectation, but occasionally, even th…
Every co-op shareholder knows that their board president is responsible for making decisions that affect the entire building community—but not as many grasp the amount of responsibility and decision-making that a person undertakes when t…
Is there anybody in this world who likes sitting through meetings? Too often they seem pointless, endless and directionless. But they’re part of co-op and condo life, an important part in fact, so if you’re a board member or property man…